Review of Hollywoodland (2006) by Mickey M — 27 Jul 2008

"Louis Simo" (Adrien Brody) is a down on his luck private investigator who has been hired to find out the truth of the death of "George Reeves" (Ben Affleck), lead actor in the classic television series "The Adventures of Superman". It is a case which may make or break his career.

The movie switches between "Simo's" private life, which deals with his estranged wife (Molly Parker) and their son (Zachary Mills), and the "Reeves" case, which brings into his life the most likely suspects in what many believe to this day to be the murder of Reeves.

Ever since the actor's death, there have been two theories -- Reeves killed himself as his friends partied downstairs and Reeves was murdered. This movie does a fair job at covering both, though "Simo" leans toward the murder theory since his client, Reeves estranged mother, believes Reeves was killed by somebody.

One thing I noticed was that the movie lags a lot, and can get boring. I personally had no interest in the "Simo" personal life subplot. On the other hand, the flashbacks of Reeves life since landing his most famous role of his career were real interesting.

Another thing I didn't like was that the real people were one-dimensional. This is possibly because many of those people are well-known actors and former studio executives, and people should already know them. These characters are used to advance the story fairly well though.

There are some good performances in this movie, and one of the best is Affleck. After watching the movie on HBO, I watched a behind-the-scenes vignette where Affleck said he constantly listened to audio clips of Reeves to try to mimic the late actor. In my opinion, the one thing Affleck nailed was Reeves' look. Out of all those who play actors from "The Adventures of Superman", he looked most like the person being portrayed.

One thing this movie does well at is making you feel as if you are in the late 1950's. From hairdos, to automobiles and wardrobes, this movie does a pretty good job at authenticity.

This movie doesn't come up with any answer on exactly how Reeves died, and we may never know the truth since many who may have the answer are no longer with us.

This movie is not perfect, but is worth being a second choice if you can't get the movie you want to rent.